Lea Letzel is an artist, director and pyrotechnician who develops interdisciplinary performative works at the interface of sound and music, media art, dance and space. She studied at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at Justus Liebig University in Giessen and at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. She has been trained as a pyrotechnician and special effects technician since 2015. Lea Letzel has participated in international exhibitions and performances, including at Witte de With, Rotterdam, Maschinenhaus Essen, Theater Duisburg, Philharmonie Duisburg, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Bonner Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung, FrankfurtLAB, Acht Brücken Festival Köln, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst Oldenburg, PACT Zollverein Essen, Münchner Kammerspiele and Kaaitheater Brüssel. She has received various scholarships and grants for her work, including the Hessian Cultural Foundation’s studio scholarship in London 2017/2018. She completed a residency as a Goethe-Institut artist-in-residence at Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto (JP) and most recently at the Panormos studio of the Palermo cultural ensemble (Goethe-Institut/Institut Français) (IT). From 2019 to 2022 she was appointed as an artistic member of the “Junges Kolleg” of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.
Lea Letztel’s dissertation project in the inter-university doctoral program “Cultures in Transformation” aims to develop a contemporary aesthetic of pyrotechnics. Against the discursive background of the current phase of global upheaval, which is caused by massive political, social and ecological crises and calls into question the contemporary relevance of pyrotechnics, she is investigating its aesthetic potential as an artistic material in its own right.